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  “No problem!” she said. “That old junk has taken up space in my attic for too long. I’ll put on some coffee.”

  I descended the stairs to find Mom and Aunt Jilly sleeping on the couch, one on each end, their legs tangled together atop the middle cushion. They’d still been up when I went to bed last night and I paused on the landing, observing from above; my mother and my auntie, two of the women from whom I’d learned how to love, to find joy in small details, to appreciate life. I sank to the faded carpet, perching on a stair riser, unwilling to disturb them just yet. Mom’s straight hair fell like a silk scarf along her right shoulder, rich golden-blond, gorgeous hair I’d always wished I inherited. So thin I could see her collarbones poking through her shirt; her thinness frightened me on an elemental level, suggesting illness, or despair.

  How could we have known the significance of what happened that summer, how much Blythe’s presence affected the rest of our lives?

  I’d never fully comprehended the power of one event to trigger a series of them, to tip the future in one direction or another. At some level, of course, I’d realized, but I’d taken for granted that my life followed a particular path; the path I was meant to walk, I’d so innocently believed.

  Did I deserve my life as a married mother of five?

  Mathias and I were so happy.

  But maybe that’s all the time we were meant to have together.

  I bent forward, wrapping into my own arms, but no amount of pressure could combat the ache of considering such a possibility.

  Maybe this is what I deserve. Separated from Mathias, just like Malcolm was separated from Cora. Maybe this is our fate and I never wanted to accept the truth.

  Tish had insisted otherwise. I glanced toward the small leather trunk in which Malcolm’s photograph had been stored for many decades, the photograph now propped against the lamp on my nightstand where it belonged. The photo and the letter existed exactly as I remembered them, as did the other items Mom and Aunt Jilly had turned up in the trunks from our attic; another of which was an old tin print contained in a fragile oval frame. The man peering outward from the brown-toned image was young and smooth-cheeked, so handsome he was almost beautiful. He was the first Davis in Minnesota, we believed, and wore a pale military uniform we guessed was from the Civil War era.

  There were no other artifacts from the nineteenth century, no hint that Ruthann or Marshall might have been here in Minnesota at that time. The bulk of the documents, photos, and letters were from later decades, after Myrtle Jean Davis built and founded Shore Leave in the 1930s. Myrtle Jean had been my grandmother’s maternal grandmother. Despite several marriages, Myrtle Jean never changed her surname from Davis and raised my great-grandmother, Louisa, and another daughter, Minnie, all on her own. Louisa, in turn, grew up to raise two daughters, Ellen and Joan; Joan was Mom and Aunt Jilly’s mother, and my grandma. We’d unearthed a marriage certificate for Grandma and her first and only husband, Mick Douglas – the grandfather I’d never known.

  But nothing new. No clues or hints as to why some things remained just as I recalled and others had changed so drastically.

  It’s like unraveling a tapestry someone started weaving at the dawn of time, Aunt Jilly had said last night. A fucking single skein could change the pattern of the whole thing. How do you trace the altered thread to its source?

  None of us had a good answer.

  No sounds came from the kitchen, no scent of perking coffee, but I was glad for the silence; no need to make conversation. Rather than disturb Mom and Jilly I crept back upstairs, forgoing a shower in favor of brushing my teeth and slinging my long hair in a ponytail. I dressed in faded jeans and an old green sweater, still undone by the sight of my high, firm breasts and unlined stomach in the bathroom mirror. It was a stranger’s body, youthful and slender. How I had mourned the loss of my taut teenaged figure in the days after Millie Jo was born; I’d been only seventeen, after all, immature and overtired, unaccustomed to the unceasing demands of motherhood.

  And what I wouldn’t give now for the return of breasts and belly marked by the rigors of pregnancy and nursing, a soft, stretch-marked body which had contained and grown and cherished five new lives.

  Clamping down on those thoughts, I hurried across the slushy parking lot, devoid of any cars but our own, and climbed into the green Toyota. I drove slowly around Flickertail to the Carters’ house, a gorgeous modern cabin a quarter-mile down the lake road from their family business, White Oaks Lodge. The little homesteader’s cabin in which Mathias and I had lived for the past eight years was tucked in the woods beyond White Oaks; I couldn’t bear to think of it today, rundown and lonely, devoid of our busy family.

  I knocked on the wide front doors of Mathias’s childhood home.

  Diana answered immediately, a pretty, petite woman with shining auburn hair, offering a polite but impersonal smile; I was all but a stranger to her in this life, not the wife of her beloved only son. It felt unnatural not to hug her. I entered to the scent of baking bread and coffee and something sweet, like melting chocolate; Diana took my coat, making genial small talk, asking about Mom and Aunt Jilly and Clint, offering commentary on the weather and my new job at the high school. Tina appeared behind her mother and I recognized unveiled curiosity in the blue depths of her eyes. I loved each of my sisters-in-law but Tina had long been my favorite, a no-nonsense woman with an outrageous sense of humor.

  Be very careful, I reminded myself.

  “We’re baking this morning, excuse the mess,” Diana explained, gesturing at the kitchen. And then she jabbed me hard in the gut, simply by saying, “My youngest is coming home today, should be here in an hour or so, in fact. He took some time off to help us strip out the floors in the ballroom. He’s a good boy, always tries to come when we need him.”

  Breathe. Just keep breathing.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met him.” It cost me, but I spoke with a remarkably even tone. The ballroom was where our wedding reception had been held.

  “He’s lived in the Cities since college.” Diana made disapproving clucking sounds. Then she brightened, gesturing at the corner hutch containing family photos. “That’s Matty and the twins, my granddaughters…”

  Don’t look, oh God, don’t look.

  But it was too late.

  Drawn beyond my will, I lifted one of many framed pictures and beheld Mathias standing on the sandy bank of Flickertail with two little girls. Clad in matching bathing suits, the girls had been photographed in the midst of horsing around, pirouetting and posing; one held her own ankle, knee bent at an acute angle, as though about to begin a gymnastics routine. They resembled Mathias with their dark hair and blue eyes, smiley little girls who were so obviously his children. They could have been my children’s siblings; they were the female versions of Brantley and Henry.

  Oh, dear, dear God…

  Never in my most bizarre imaginings could I have conjured such a situation, witnessing my husband in an alternate life, a life without our love, without us. I studied him with faltering control, trying to determine what he’d been feeling when the picture was snapped that summer day. Shirtless and tanned, he held the fishing pole his grandpa had given him for his thirteenth birthday and which he’d always cherished; he was smiling, but not the smile to which I was accustomed, his wide, effortless grin that beamed like a ray of July sunshine. I knew this man better than I knew myself and I saw in that smile a lack of true happiness.

  The scariest part is I actually thought I was fairly happy.

  Mathias’s words, spoken in 2006 while we were on vacation in Montana, rang inside my skull. He’d been referring to the year before he moved home to Landon, a year during which he’d dated Suzy and intended to remain in Minneapolis, the year before we had met at Shore Leave one cold December night.

  I saw you and I knew you were mine, in every sense of the word, he had said that gorgeous night in the foothills of eastern Montana, the night we’d conceived Brantley and Henry.
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br />   The man in the image I cradled in both hands was Mathias without me; he was Malcolm without Cora.

  “I love that picture, even though Suzy isn’t in it,” Diana was saying.

  Tina hooked an arm around her mother’s waist, with a crooked grin. “I think that may be why you love that picture.”

  I tore my gaze from Mathias and his daughters, heartened to a tiny degree.

  Diana released a small huff of laughter, swatting at Tina. “Don’t say that! I like Suzy well enough. It’s just that she isn’t much for the north woods. I don’t think she’s been up here with him in the last five years, at least. Matty brings Cora and Cammy every summer and stays a couple weeks. I count on that time. I miss them so much, but Suzy won’t stand for living outside the city.”

  My composure withstood another blow.

  Cora and Cammy?

  Oh, Mathias…

  You know, don’t you, sweetheart? Somewhere inside you remember.

  Just as quickly, I recognized the danger of being here when he arrived. I replaced the picture, engaged in a sudden, intense battle with my own better judgment.

  You have to leave.

  No. I want to see him. God help me, I want to see him.

  It will kill you.

  But I miss him so fucking much.

  Go. Go now.

  What if we can’t get back to the life we knew?

  What if today is the only time I’ll ever lay eyes on him again?!

  Resolve turned my insides to iron. Cold, rigid, obstinate.

  Whatever it takes, I will get us back to our real life.

  Tina led me upstairs a few minutes later, maintaining an easy, steady flow of conversation as I followed her to a small set of creaky steps at the end of the hallway, which led to a narrow wooden trapdoor. Because I knew her so well, I heard in her tone numerous questions she wanted – but wasn’t quite ready – to ask; she’d very cagily offered to help me and I braced for what was coming. She climbed to the third step and reached for the metal handle, tugging at the trapdoor. Running the entire length of the upper floor, the Carters’ attic was a space in which their grandchildren loved to play; it boasted a ceiling with sharp peaks and enchanting, cobwebbed nooks, not to mention boxes of old clothes and hats and other assorted jumble. My kids loved the way they could crawl on hands and knees to peer out the dormer windows, spying on the yard far below.

  “Here we go,” Tina said, grunting as she pulled harder on the door; it always stuck. Dust billowed and we both coughed.

  I spoke without thinking. “Remember when Lydia –”

  I hurtled to a halt, wanting to bite through my tongue.

  Tina looked over her shoulder, the door frozen at half-mast, her eyebrows lofted. Lydia was her youngest daughter and as far as Tina knew there was no way in hell I would possess any remembrances of her. I’d been about to say, Remember when Lydia fell asleep up here and scared all of us half to death? Thanksgiving, five years ago; we’d been ready to call Charlie Evans down at the police station. The door creaked as Tina let it slowly close and turned to face me; I knew that expression. Sweat formed along my hairline.

  “It’s the weirdest thing.” Her voice was low and soft, like someone in the process of revealing dire news. She let this sink in for a heartbeat. “But I feel like I know you better than I should. Like, I remember things about you. Did you just mean Lydia, my daughter?”

  I was at a loss; my mouth was too dry for words.

  She crinkled her eyes, conveying confusion rather than alarm. I reflected that Tina was not a woman easily shaken. She was practical and down-to-earth and I teetered on a knife blade; did I dare trust her with what I knew?

  “I heard about what happened at Eddie’s last night,” she went on, sinking to a seat on the middle step, putting our faces at about the same level; I remained standing in the hallway. “About you freaking out on Justin Miller and throwing your glass.” Her lips took on a small, ironic tilt, not quite a smile. “Don’t get me wrong, I actually think it’s hilarious. Those regulars need a little shot of adrenaline now and then, along with their booze. But it’s not that. It’s what you said to him. What did you mean that nothing ‘here’ was right? That no one knew what was right?”

  Shit.

  I had underestimated the speed of small-town gossip.

  And I had absolutely no idea how to answer.

  Tina was undeterred, making no attempt to disguise her desire to know more. She searched my eyes. “You may not believe me when I say this, but what you said to Justin reminded me of something. A dream I used to have, back when I was a teenager. I would dream about Mathias, these horrible recurring dreams where he was trapped somewhere just beyond my sight. He’d be crying for me to find him, begging me, and I’d be running all over the place, screaming his name. It scared the shit out of me.”

  My knees gave way almost politely; I sank to a crouch, folding my hands and bringing them to my lips.

  Tina whispered, “And he’d be sobbing in those dreams, just a little boy, telling me that none of this was right. He was trapped somewhere and it wasn’t right.” Her eyes stabbed at me. “This means something to you, doesn’t it?”

  I nodded, a jerking, puppet-like movement.

  Tina leaned closer, clutching her knees. “What does it mean?”

  I swallowed, summoning my voice. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “I would, I promise you,” she insisted. Tina was the same age as Jilly, and while I’d never known Tina to experience extrasensory perception in the way of Aunt Jilly’s Notions, she was possessed of an uncanny sense of intuition. Despite their age difference, Tina and Mathias had always been close; she was the sister in whom he confided. Further, if any of my sisters-in-law was able to believe such an extreme explanation, it was Tina.

  I bent my forehead to my knuckles, gaining strength, before lifting my face to confront her adamant gaze. “I know what I’m asking you to accept seems crazy. I really do. But I’ve known you a long time, Tina, and I trust you to trust me.” I drew a calming breath and stepped from the high dive. “In the Landon I just came from, you are my sister-in-law. You have been for many years. Mathias is my husband and we have five children.”

  Tina absorbed this without expression and my lungs compressed. At last she sat straight and I could nearly hear the thoughts winging across her mind. She murmured, “God, this is so weird. I swear I knew this already, Camille. I’ve known this for a long time.” Urgency overtook her features and she leaned forward. “Where is Matty trapped? Do you know?”

  I could have crumpled flat to the floor with relief; she had taken a chance and believed me. “Oh God, Tina, I don’t know. I’m trying to find out. The only other person who remembers what’s right is my sister, Tish. The last time I saw Mathias he was singing at The Spoke. We’d gone out to Montana with the kids, to visit my sisters…”

  “Wait.” Tina could not let this slide. “Your sisters? As in, more than one?”

  “I have two sisters, Tish and Ruthann. Somehow Ruthie was never born in this timeline.”

  Diana called from the kitchen, “Tina, come grab this tray. You girls will work up an appetite digging through all that junk!”

  We stared at one another for a beat of weighty silence.

  “I’ll be right back!” Tina said. “Don’t vanish!”

  Two hours later Tina and I were dusty and dirt-smudged, our hair adorned with sticky bits of cobweb. Working together, we dug through trunks, suitcases, drawers, shoeboxes. We upset probably over a century of spider habitation. And as we unearthed junk, we talked. Or, I talked and Tina listened, inserting an occasional question or request for greater clarification. I detailed as clear a description as I could, omitting nothing, no longer caring if it was right or not. Much like Aunt Jilly, the more I revealed, the more Tina insisted she had guessed something was wrong – off, as she put it – long ago.

  “So, some people and events are the same as you remember, but others different,” sh
e mused at one point. “I suppose it figures. Everything makes a ripple of its own, things we don’t normally take a second to consider. A single choice has a thousand possible outcomes. We can’t begin to imagine. It’s fucking mind-numbing.”

  “It seems like most things have followed a path similar to what was intended. By that I mean what I remember as ‘right,’” I explained, wiping both palms on my thighs, leaving grime smears on my jeans. “Nearly everyone who used to live in Landon still does, and the town is almost exactly like I remember. But my family is so different. Grandma and Aunt Ellen and Ruthie are just gone. Blythe and my brothers, gone.” I covered my face, pressing hard against my forehead with eight fingertips.

  “If you make things right again, will this timeline just go up in smoke? Will we remember?” Tina used her wrists to push loose hair from her face; her hands were covered in dust. Again, she did not appear apprehensive as much as intrigued.

  For the first time since we entered the attic I’d paused in my rummaging; holding still felt wrong on a subterranean level. Movement suggested purpose, direction. Stillness was admitting defeat. I closed my eyes and whispered, “I don’t know. All I know is that –”

  “Tina! You up here?”

  My eyes flew open, electricity flaying my skin from the inside out. Tina had mentioned earlier that Mathias hadn’t planned to drive up to Landon until tomorrow but called early this morning to tell them he’d taken an extra day.

  Because he’s drawn to you, she surmised. He knew you’d be here, somehow, I’ll bet you.

  “Stay here,” Tina ordered in an undertone, squeezing my shoulder as she hurried toward the trapdoor, propped open on the far side of the room. “You look like you’re about to pass out. I’ll distract him.”

  No, I tried to say.

  But it was too late. The steps creaked and Mathias’s head and shoulders appeared. Spying his sister, he offered a grin as he climbed the last few risers with his typical grace and entered the attic, collecting her in an affectionate embrace. Half-hidden behind a trunk stacked with folded quilts I devoured the sight of him, noting every detail, every difference. Clean-shaven, his wavy hair a mess – he’d been wearing a hat on the way here, I could tell – dressed in worn jeans, work boots, and a green flannel unbuttoned over a gray thermal shirt. My longing for him swelled with the force of an avalanche and I rose, drawn beyond any hope of reason, immediately catching his attention. Tina chewed her lower lip, watching quietly as Mathias headed my way, grinning with his usual amiability.